


All the Bright Young People

by calisthenicswithwords



Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 17:06:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4927954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calisthenicswithwords/pseuds/calisthenicswithwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A 1920s AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Bright Young People

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lookinglassgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookinglassgirl/gifts).



> This is largely a riff on Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies. I also stole the circumstances of Dan and Blair's meet cute (plus the line with the asterisk) from PG Wodehouse's Leave It to Psmith. All the clever things are due to them, and all the bad bits are my own.

Mr. Carter Baizen & Miss Serena van der Woodsen cordially request your presence:

The Romantics Party

At Mr. Baizen's Apartment on July 12th, 1928

9 pm

Fancy dress required.

 

 

At Carter Baizen's party, Penelope Shafai, daughter of Mr. William Shafai III and third in line to inherit the Shafai & Sons shipping fortune, said to Hazel Williams, second cousin twice removed of half the earls listed in _Burke's Peerage_ : "Hello, dear."

"Dreadful dull party, isn't it?" said Hazel, as she sipped happily at her champagne flute.

"Ghastly," replied Penelope. "But I haven't been to a good party since 1926."

"That was an excellent year for parties. Now everyone is an absolute bore." Hazel's eyes fixed on Mr. Charles Bass. He'd made a wrong turn into a wall and, confined to a corner by directional ineptitude, was having a very heated conversation with a potted plant.

"The costumes aren't even worth looking at," said Penelope. "Just look at poor Charles. He looks like a deranged street urchin."

"Positively Dickensian."

"What is he supposed to be?" asked Penelope. She tried very hard to overhear his conversation with the plant.

"Heathcliff, I'm afraid," replied Hazel, with a derisive sniff. "No one is sure whether he's in character or whether he uncorked the vino too early today."  

Because the laws of gravity exclude no man from their rough embrace, Charles pitched forward into the plant. He fumbled with its foliage like a blind man trying to fold a map, and, his heart suddenly full with passion, cried: "I cannot live without my soul!"

His ecstatic outburst carried across the room and Penelope smiled wide at the sound. "Drunk _and_ dedicated to his role, I think."

A brave waiter, after taking stock of the situation, untangled Mr. Bass from his plant. He gave him a push and Charles was soon swallowed whole by a rush of partygoers, his lurching figure disappearing into a whorl of limbs and silk. Penelope craned her neck to get another glimpse, but he had gone.

"Ta," she said, disappointed.

The much-persecuted plant remained silent.

 

 

A few minutes later, Penelope was seen chattering into a telephone receiver. Her words were fast, perfectly enunciated, and uninhibited by any prosaic call for cohesion. She was, as it happened, junior gossip columnist for _The Talebearer_.

"…Miss Serena van der Woodsen, hostess cum harlot, wore a low cut gown and a wreath of flowers in her hair. Stop. Italicize harlot. She called herself Juliet, but looked a bit less virginal than Shakespeare's famed heroine. Stop. Her Romeo, Mr. Baizen, was wearing a gold satin suit that seemed more Rudolph Valentino than Renaissance Verona, but his new haircut received the most effusive praise. Stop. Mr. Charles Bass was typically zazzled, and had several animated conversations with inanimate objects. Stop. The real scandal was the appearance of one Miss Waldorf, who hasn't been seen on these shores since the incident too harrowing to reprint in these pages. Stop. She wore a black dress and called herself Mrs. Shelley. Stop. Mr. Nate Archibald, clad in a religious habit made of red velvet, made for a rather foppish Abelard. It begs the question: does he know how the romance of Abelard and Heloise ended? Stop. Question mark. No, darling, it's spelled H-E-L-O-I-S-E…"    

It was just that sort of party.

 

 

The ballroom was lit by a fleet of waiters wearing Regency breeches and carrying candelabras. They maneuvered through the crowd in perfect waltz time, dodging drunken partygoers and raising their candles ceilingwards when flammable wigs jigged by. Statues of famous lovers flanked the entranceways, and a parrot trained to hum Rudolpho's aria from _La Boheme_ hopped from shoulder to shoulder. An all-male acting troupe was performing _Antony and Cleopatra_ in a corner, waving red silk scarves in the air whenever someone died.

There was Georgina Sparks, holding court near the punch bowl. She had wrapped a pinch of flour in blue paper, and was having great fun pretending to do cocaine.

"It's absolutely sick-making!" she cried, as she held the flour to her nose in the approved Parisian manner.

There was Serena Van der Woodsen, surrounded by doting peons, attempting to turn cartwheels with a glass of champagne in her hand. A blonde streak tumbled, a crunch was heard, and then she rebounded in a blaze of febrile delight, holding a bloodied hand aloft before the crowd. She wiped it across the front of her blue frock and, after gazing critically at the flowering stain, said to the gentleman standing next to her: "Darling I think it suits, don't you?"

"Oh yes, dear," he said, quite serious. "I'm sure it will catch on."

There was Nelly Yuki, who had no time for the smart set's favorite new fabric patterns.

"Whatever are you dressed as, darling?" asked Jessica Leitenberg of Miss Yuki.

Nelly, who was wrapped in a plain white sheath with feathers stitched into the seams, answered with great solemnity. "I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs."

"Well I shouldn't think you could see them," said Jessica. "There aren't any flowers on the floor. Have your spectacles gone missing again, dear?"

"That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, and with thee fade away into the forest dim," answered Nelly. Satisfied with her rejoinder, she turned heel. Nelly, truly devoted to Romance, was just sensible enough to spot a nonbeliever.    

There was Jennifer Humphrey (wearing a drowsy little frock hand stitched in a hurry). Miss Humphrey, a wide-eyed newcomer to the scene, was much too overcome to utter a syllable. Even a breathy "La!" was beyond her respiratory reach. To see all her favorite characters from the gossip columns—oh, how it made her heart flutter! There was Miss van der Woodsen standing on a table, unspooling her hair and dancing like Dionysus; there was Mr. Baizen next to the canapés, handing out epigrams with all the ceremony of the Queen Mother. How charming it all was!

She was forced out of her silent reverie when Nathaniel Archibald tripped over his velvet robes and landed in her lap.

"Oh, ho!" he sputtered, by way of apology.

Jennifer, much affected by this display of humility, could only blush.

"Fa," she managed.

She bent her head quite prettily and, had Nate chanced to look up, he might've been very impressed indeed. Unfortunately, subterfuge was on his mind at the moment, and Nate was never able to hold two thoughts in his head at once. He bounced happily between single minded and absolutely empty.

He sprang up and away, his velvet robes swishing behind him.

Miss Humphrey curled her hands into fists and felt the rough touch of calluses pressing against her palms. _She_ could wrench off her home sewn frock and dance until morning. _She_ could talk in high-pitched teases and make love to boys with gold dusted lashes. Oh, how she wanted to! One day she would show them all, thought Miss Humphrey.

"Squawk!" sang Poll the operatic parrot, as he landed on her shoulder. His pitch was perfect.

 

 

"Apparently Nelly Yuki has come dressed as a poem," said Kati to Iz.

"Is that so?" said Iz to Kati. "I suspected dying pigeon."

"That poor girl is determined to be inscrutable. Individuality is nice in small doses, but if she doesn't take care she'll find herself disinvited."

"I'd rather be dead than disinvited."

"From a phenomenological point of view, it's nearly the same thing," said Kati, suddenly contemplative. "If the subjective experience is only awakened by a good party, the social exile is no better off than the dead. Even corpses get to attend funerals, though I've rarely found those festive.

"Very right, dear. I don't think I've ever attended a truly jolly funeral."

"Nor I," continued Kati. "And would you believe that the dead don't even receive invitations?

"Imagine, dying and not being invited to the service!" exclaimed Iz. "I wouldn't be able to bear the shame. I'd die again, just out of spite."

They paused to contemplate the indignity of it all. Having the right to refuse an invitation was, they felt, the highest order of freedom; they couldn't understand how Death managed to circumvent traditional etiquette.

"Dying again is the only sensible course of action," continued Kati. "Just think of it! First the dead are hauled to and fro in a wooden box, an insult to anyone acquainted with the snappy thrum of a taxicab. And then, once they're firmly ensconced in those fetid berths, not a soul remembers to talk to them. No one takes the time to ask after their health, or inquire whether they need their fingernails clipped. Some say death cancels all conversation, but that seems a paltry excuse to me. I've listened in on many trenchant one-sided chats, where neither party was the least bit dead."

"Very true," said Iz. "Many of my best conversation have involved no one but me."

Nelly Yuki tumbled past, gesturing towards an unseen sky. A sad trail of feathers fluttered in her wake.

"She'll never learn," said Kati, now roused from her existential stupor. "No one wants to dance with a poem."

 

 

Daniel Humphrey, part time writer and full time interloper, was leaning against a banister. He was always on guard at these events, his face fixed in an artful snarl intended to disarm onlookers. But no one ever paid him the compliment of looking, and his attempts to incite a revolution with a quirk of his brow were never met with anything more radical than a light cough.

"I hate these parties," said Dan.

"You say that every time," said Vanessa.

"My hate is best expressed when I'm drinking their champagne." He snatched a salmon puff off a passing tray.

"At least your hypocrisy is well fed."

"All baseless grudges need nourishment. What would my shoulder be like without a chip on it? I'd hardly recognize myself. No, better to luxuriate in the white-hot power of hate. It sustains me when the heat in my apartment runs out."

Vanessa, a photographer for the _Miss Tattletale_ society pages, snapped a picture of a passing Narcissus.

"I'm glad you have something to keep your bed warm at night," she said.

"If that was a jibe at my sexual prowess, I'll have you know that I've been rated as unimpeachably adequate by more than one young lady. Two. _Two_ young ladies."

As he contemplated his libidinal adequacy, a girl in a black satin dress marched across the room. She was wrapped tight as a present, but her left sleeve dipped low as she hurried past and Dan caught a glimpse of soft white skin.

Who's that?" he asked, his eyes following her path.

"Blair Waldorf," said Vanessa. "Recently returned from Paris. Her father decided to take the path of Wildean resistance and now she's left unmoored and unmarriable. It was quite the scandal."

"She looks terrifying." His voice was accusatory, but his face said otherwise.

"Don't even think about it, Humphrey. She could eat you for breakfast and have room for three more men before lunch."

"She looks very dainty. We couldn't possibly fit."

"She is a viper of non-Euclidean proportions."

He watched as Miss Waldorf marched up to Miss van der Woodsen and tapped her on the shoulder; he watched as Miss van der Woodsen pirouetted towards the touch, an eddy of blonde curls. He saw her smile freeze, and he saw the moment it widened and reached her eyes. The two girls embraced with all the fervor of lovers reunited after a war, and Serena let out an exultant whoop that vibrated across the dance floor. Blair laughed in relief, breaking out a pair of celebratory dimples for the occasion. But Dan observed every pretty girl with a novelist's eye, and he thought he could detect that Blair, so strident a moment before, was slightly diminished in her friend's presence.

Vanessa, who had watched Dan watch the girls, said: "You always like the mean ones."

 

 

Penelope tossed a glass of wine at Hazel, and the red stain unspooled across her midsection. Hazel squealed.

"Darling, it's the latest fashion."

 

 

Miss Waldorf, who hadn't spoken to her friend Miss van der Woodsen in many months, had not been too anxious about their reunion. Serena was not the type of girl to hold grudges. Successful grudges, like successful romances, require a high level of emotional constancy; Serena, for all her manifold charms, had never aspired to _that_.

"Hello S."

"Hello B."

"I'm dreadfully sorry I didn't write. Ruined lives make for excellent poems but unbearable letters. If my talents had ever taken a poetic turn I'd have written reams. Alas, my troubles simply didn't inspire me to pick up the pen."

"I'm sure your life isn't ruined, B."

"I'm an absolute outcast, fated to wander this earth friendless and alone."

"La," demurred Serena, quite kindly.

"I can't bear such affection," said Blair, bowing her head into a pose of faux contrition. "It's too, _too_ much. I don't deserve it."

Serena, who felt no need to exercise economy in matters of finance or friendship, said: "Nonsense. You know I'll do whatever I can to help."

Blair, who took any sign of kindness as an opportunity to scheme, said: "There is something you can do, dearest S."

Blair looked up at Serena with great, glistening eyes and, to her credit, Serena's smile hardly faltered at all.

 

 

Vanessa traipsed through the party with her camera in hand. The flash went off in bright white blasts, and everyone cried "how dull!" as they scurried, smiles at the ready, towards the light.

 

 

"Your dress is divine, Serena dear," said Nathaniel as he hid behind a statue of Isolde, his fingers wrapped round the lover's marble thigh.

"Yes I really do think it suits me," said Serena, and for a moment she was lost to the dizzying heights of her own self-regard. Then, remembering her purpose, she said: "Nate, darling, don't you think you ought to ask Blair to dance?"

At the mention of Blair he shrank floorwards, and soon he was nothing but a tuft of hair sprouting from Isolde's left foot. "I don't think that would be a good idea," said the tuft. "Mother would be very angry if she read about it in the papers tomorrow."

"La!" cried Serena, quite emphatically.

"I cannot bear such a severe reproof," said the tuft. It bobbed in a manner that could only be called sheepish. "All right, I'll ask her to dance." The tuft ascended and there again was Nate, gleaming and golden in the candlelight.

"You are a darling, Natey."

Nate, his head hung low like a man destined for the gallows, went in search of Miss Waldorf.

 

 

"Singest of summer in full-throated ease!" cried Nelly Yuki. She stretched out her arms towards a glittering chandelier and as her fingers drew closer she could see it all so clearly; she would fly over a sea of smiling faces, held aloft by her crystal chariot, and all the people would chant "Nelly, how brave!" and "Nelly, how charming!"

But then her ankle wobbled, and her fingertips missed. Ah well.

 

 

There were Nate and Blair, dancing. Her arms were greedy; he was perpetually arching away from their touch.

"D'you know, Nate," said Blair, as they swayed, "I'd convinced myself your eyes were green. I went abroad and I thought to myself: Oh my darling Natey, his green eyes can see straight through to my soul. But now here you are before me, your eyes as blue as the sky."

"I hope you aren't too disappointed," said Nate.

"Blair is always disappointed," said Carter Baizen as he swanned past, glass of champagne in hand.

"Go fall on a dagger, Carter," said Blair to Mr. Baizen, before returning sweetly to Nate. "But I do think it was rather rude of you, dear, to convince me that your eyes were green when in fact they are blue. Girls don't want duplicitous fiancés."

"About the engagement, Blair." Nate tugged nervously at his velvet collar. "Are you sure that's still on? A fellow starts wondering when his affianced runs away for months without sending word. Men want fiancées with known whereabouts, after all."

Blair opened her eyes wide and arranged her head in its best position, and said: "You won't hold a little thing like that against me, will you?"

"Well, you see, Blair," started Nate, each hastily chosen word tumbling out with a thud, "I don't think, well, now that you're here—" he took a small step back, "—I think it would be wisest, in light of certain circumstances—" he took another, "—well, it's Mother, you see, she doesn't approve, and you know how Mother can be when she doesn't approve, she's truly vicious—" and yet another, "—a man might lose his life to one of her withering glares—" he kept inching, "—seeing as I haven't got her consent, and where the mother flows so too goes the purse strings—" the inching intensified, gaining in speed and velocity, "—I'm not suited for work Blair, I'm really not—" he was nearly to the door, "—I'd appreciate it awfully a lot, if we were, to, in so many words, well—" he ducked behind a waiter, "—end the engagement."

And with those parting words he hurried out of the room, leaving her frozen and alone on the dance floor. Blair found herself suddenly without a fiancé, and her arms, which had been held aloft in perfect waltz position, remained empty.  

 

 

There in the corner, a sylph-like boy made up like a hothouse flower cried: "What should I stay!" A red scarf fluttered through the air, and Cleopatra was dead.

 

 

Then they all began to depart: the boys dressed as Pyramus and the girls dressed as Guinevere. They skipped towards the exit, flushed with the greed of unfulfilled gaiety; they piled into taxicabs and went in search of more.

But Miss Waldorf, who had had too, _too_ much already, was left standing alone on the sidewalk. It had started to rain, but she showed no signs of noticing. Her black satin dress, which she had chosen with such care, had collapsed under the weight of the rainfall. Mr. Humphrey, who was watching her from beneath a nearby awning, thought she looked like a little girl wrapped in a funeral pall. But then he often got sentimental when caught in the rain. This was, he thought, one of the primary defects of his character.

Perhaps it was the rain, or perhaps it was the way her shoulder blades arched upwards when she shivered, but Dan felt a sudden need to do something gallant. He went back into the building and made his way to the cloakroom. There was a pile of umbrellas huddled together on a shelf, and he chose the grandest looking one; it had lace trim and a handle carved into a beak. He ducked back into the rain and opened the umbrella as he strode towards her.

"Miss Waldorf!"

Blair turned towards the sound and shot him a look that even the most generous observer would call a scowl. Dan, however, was undeterred. His mouth crooked upwards into a smile and he gently pressed the umbrella into her hands, winding her fingers round the handle. Then he doffed a cap he didn't have and turned to leave, his step lightened by the sense of a deed well done. Dan was absolutely floating with self-satisfaction. He could have trod on a cloud.

Blair stood there for a moment, umbrella in hand. She was really too surprised to say a word. It is not everyday, after all, that umbrellas emerge from the shadows as if by magic. But then she recollected the events of the evening, and of her life so far, and she decided that one gifted umbrella was not enough to rouse her out of her foul mood. As she was never one to let a good deed go unpunished, she called out: "Wait!" in a manner intended to offend.

Dan, feeling his deed somewhat diminished by her hauteur, decided to be cold in return.

"Yes?"

"I won't take your umbrella, sir," she said with deadly civility. She sashayed in his direction, umbrella perched prettily overhead. He, of course, was by now nearly soaked through. The clouds were no longer underfoot.

"Oh, don't worry," he said. "It isn't my umbrella."

"Not your umbrella?" she asked. "Have you gifted me stolen merchandise?"

"Call it a redistribution of property."*

"There's a socialist among us," she said with a sniff. She turned her head away as she spoke, as though addressing an invisible audience.

"I come by it honestly, I'm afraid. It's quite easy to sneer at private property when you haven't got any."

"That's not an admission people make in polite society."

"Well, you haven't been very polite."

At this she gaped and looked quite feral in the darkness. He wondered whether she would hit him with the umbrella.

"You are dreadful!" she cried, and tried to force the unwanted umbrella into his arms. As it was still open, the quarrel soon became cumbersome; they each batted at the yawning canopy in turn, shrieking into the night like children. Eventually it floated down and landed in a puddle, where it twirled quite sadly.

"Such fuss over an umbrella," he said. She had punctured his spirits, and he was feeling rather dismal.

"Well," she said, in lieu of an apology. Their round of fisticuffs had had quite a different effect on her. She was feeling almost merry.

She grabbed the umbrella and stretched it towards the sky.

"I think I will keep the umbrella, after all," she said. "There's something rather charming about stolen wares, isn't there? The thrill of the ill gotten gain. It's enough to send shivers up a girl's spine." She smiled, though not at him.

Dan, perplexed by the turn of her mood, could do nothing but stare.

"I don't think I caught your name," she said.

"Dan," he stuttered. "Dan Humphrey."

"Well, goodbye Mr. Humphrey!"

She skipped down the street with her free hand raised in the air, and a taxi appeared as though she had willed it. With not a glance in his direction, she was off.

Cleopatra stumbled onto the sidewalk. He was a slim, epicene boy of about 18, and his face was still smudged with rouge and white paint. He looked very sad in an artistic sort of way, like a love sonnet shaped like a human.

"Have you got a light?" he asked Dan.

Dan gave him one.

"What's your name?"

"Eric," said Cleopatra.

"Is Blair Waldorf always so terrible?" asked Dan, still staring in the direction of her taxi.

"Only sometimes," said Eric, smiling like he knew a secret.

Eric gave Dan a nod and wandered off into the rain, his red scarf just visible in the darkness. Then he turned the corner and the streets were empty but for the sound of rain slapping at the pavement. Dan went home.

 

 

The next morning, Dan woke up determined to write.

He had been commissioned to write a slim volume on Princess Alexandra of Bavaria, and he was certain it would be his masterpiece. Dan sat down at his writing desk, and for a few moments his pen hovered over a sheet of paper. It was no use. The pen might be mightier than the sword, but the blank page is mightier than both. How many poets have been vanquished by that beacon of nothingness; how many novelists have turned to accountancy when accosted by its bright stare? Nothing is so terrifying as the expectation of genius. It was just too much, he thought. He lay down on his bed and took a nap.

He was still slumbering when his phone rung.

"Miss Waldorf on the line for Mr. Humphrey," said Miss Waldorf's voice. She never let anyone to think she dialed or answered the phone herself.

"All right," he said.

"Hello, Mr. Humphrey?" said Blair, pretending to come to the phone.

"Hello."

I'd like you to meet me for lunch."

"Oh. I'm afraid my head hurts today."

"I don't accept mere headaches as excuses. Was your head bashed in by a victimized umbrella owner?"

"No."

"Then I will expect you at the Plaza by noon."

Then she pretended to hand the phone to a secretary, and hung up.

 

 

When Dan arrived at the Plaza, Penelope Shafai was waiting outside ready to pounce.

"Mr. Humphrey?" she called, running towards him as he exited his cab.

"Yes?"

"I heard from Kati Farkas who heard from Hazel Williams who heard from an early morning street cleaner that you and Blair Waldorf had a romantic spat outside Carter's party last night."

"Oh?" His head still hurt.

"Come now, Mr. Humphrey, deadlines are looming and I've no time for modesty," she said, rat-a-tat-tapping on her notebook with a pen. "Are you and Miss Waldorf having an affair? Or are you engaged in something more, shall we say, vulgar? With a father such as hers, one can't expect spotless scruples."

He was not prepared for this line of questioning, and had nothing in particular to add. He pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers and walked away.

Penelope was not surprised by this reaction; she had never taken a scholarly interest in the art of tact, and she'd spoiled many a good scoop by being too blunt, too mean, too _too_. But she did wish he'd given her more than one syllable. It was so hard to wring an entire article out of one syllable. She sighed, and scribbled into her notebook something snide about the cut of his suit.

 

 

Dan entered the restaurant and there was Blair, already seated, wearing an emerald green frock and a jaunty hat. She looked very fetching. This annoyed him.

"Mr. Humphrey!" she cried, as she waived him towards her table with an expensively gloved hand.

"Miss Waldorf."

"I am _so_ glad to see you again," she said, smile bright and teeth bared. He slumped into his seat.

"Why would you say such a thing?" he asked. "Last night you spurned my gallant overtures, we nearly came to blows, and then you hopped away from the crime scene like a wild rabbit. It was not an auspicious meeting."

"Let us only speak of the past if it brings us satisfaction," said Blair, philosophically. She was a great fan of philosophy. Though conversant with the works of Kant and Nietzsche, she preferred a philosophy of her own making, which allowed her to do whatever she pleased whenever she wanted to do it.

"Why did you call me here?" he asked. He scanned the menu, searching for the cheapest dish.

"I need your help," she said, quite prettily.

"Whatever for? I'm not sure what I've got to offer you."

"I've learned a great deal about you since last night," she said. "I know your father is a composer who retired after writing one middling operetta. I know your sister is a pretty blonde waif just itching for invitations. I know your mother ran off with an Argentinean painter when you were seven and hasn't been heard from since. And I know that you, Mr. Humphrey, are a writer who hasn't written a thing. So I know you haven't got anything to offer me. That's not a surprise. I still think, however, that you could be…useful."

Dan's eyes went wide at this recitation of his supposed failures. "I don't know whether to be frightened or flattered," he said. "But I know I can't help you. First of all, I am extremely busy writing what I'm sure will be my masterpiece. Second of all, people who can conduct a thorough background check before breakfast aren't to be trusted."

"I like to learn six new facts before breakfast every day. It is to your credit that this morning they were all about you. It's not my fault they weren't all flattering. If you'd been more industrious while at Yale this meeting might have gone quite differently."

"Has this tactic proven effective in the past?" he asked, terribly put out. "Wielding words like a sledgehammer and beating friends and foes into submission?"

She gave the question a moment's consideration. "Yes."

"Out with it, then," he said. "What have you called me here for?"

"Well, as you may or may not know, my fiancé, who I have loved dearly from the age of five and will love dearly until the day I die, has recently called off our engagement. I am, as you can see, devastated."

"You look all right to me," he said. And she did. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, her eyes, so bright and chipper, certainly suggested a soul unburdened.  

"I am sorry that you aren't able to detect the full extent of my heartbreak," she snapped. "I thought a writer would have a keener eye for the complexities of human emotion, but I see I was mistaken."

"I have a very keen eye," he said. "Your makeup isn't smudged, so I know you haven't cried for several hours. Your ensemble is perfectly coordinated, so your grief hasn't left you bereft of taste. And your hat hasn't moved once, so someone spent quite a few minutes pinning it into defeat. Girls with broken hearts aren't that fastidious about hair pins."

He leaned back in his chair, feeling like he'd won his first victory of the day. Suddenly, his head felt rather better.

"You're wretched," she said. "My fiancé would never be so gauche as to inquire after a lady's hair pins."

"Ex-fiancé," he reminded her. She scowled.  

"When my darling Nate ended our engagement, he acted without malice aforethought, or without any thought at all, really. He needs me around so that he has someone to think _for_ him; he can't be trusted to do it on his own. Nate just hasn't got a head made for thoughts."

"What was his head made for, then?" he asked.

"To be looked at," she said, without a trace of irony.

"And when he's far gone in age and his beauty is gone? What then?"

"Let us only speak of the future if it brings us satisfaction," she said.

"A foolproof plan," he replied, heaving his eyes skyward.

"I am an excellent planner. To prove it, I will at last outline for you my latest scheme."

"Please do."

"Nate needs me, and I need Nate. This is an incontrovertible fact. It's just slipped his mind for the moment, because I haven't been here to remind him of it. To win him back, I have to make him remember. And do it so forcefully that he won’t be tempted to forget again."

"And how do you propose to do such a thing?"

"With you."

"Me?"

"Yes," she said, with a dreamy look in her eye. "You will be my new beau. We'll be seen cavorting all over town, we'll send the gossip pages into an absolute tizzy, and just when we appear to be on the precipice of cementing our new love forever, Nate will come running back to me. He will defy his mother and social convention, and we’ll be happy together forevermore."

"Why me?"

"Well, you aren't terrible looking, and you have a sort of…bohemian appeal. You would make a suspicious but not wholly embarrassing addition to my romantic history. And if I tried to pull this off with someone from my own set, people would inevitably see through the ruse. Better to pluck someone from obscurity and buy him a new suit then be forced into faux amour with one of Nate's dimwitted Dartmouth chums."

"And why on earth would I consent to this proposal? What do I get out of it?"

"The pleasure of seeing my spirits buoyed and my dreams fulfilled."

"If you think that's going to work, your private detective vastly overrated my sense of compassion."

"So the intrepid umbrella thief isn't so gallant in the harsh light of day," she said. "How about a meeting with Jeremiah Harris?"

"You know Jeremiah Harris?" asked Dan, his interested piqued.

"He plays canasta with my mother every other Tuesday. I'm sure I could set up a meeting."

"I thought you were, well…" he said, tugging at his collar. "A bit diminished, socially. Could you could guarantee it?"

"I'm not promising a private audience with the Queen of England," she said, much offended. "I think I can arrange a meeting between you and a moderately successful novelist."

"How about a meeting with his publisher as well?"

"You give a peasant a star and he asks for the moon," she sniffed. "All right. I will do everything in my power to aid your burgeoning career."

"I still think this is a terrible plan," he said.

"But you'll go along with it?"

He looked across the table at the tiny girl, so seemingly unblemished by misfortune, who had breezed into the restaurant with an unwavering belief in her ability to succeed. He didn't like her; he couldn't like anyone who suffered heartbreak with such panache, but he wanted to drink long at the tap of her upper class conviction. If nothing else, it would make for a good novella.

"I will," he said, with a certainty he didn't feel.

They shook hands. Her handshake was, unsurprisingly, firmer than his.

 

 

Miss Blair Waldorf cordially requests your presence:

A Party in Honor of the Artist Wilhelm Aksel Ernst

At Miss Waldorf's Apartment on August 14, 1928

10 pm

Checkbooks recommended.

 

 

Mr. Charles Bass was standing in front of a painting. A windmill with human arms was strangling Rodin's statue of Eve, and a purple moon, looming large against a cloudless orange sky, was watching it all with great indifference. Charles was staring at it very hard. He did not have an expansive imagination, and these paintings, drenched with decapitated chickens and fields of vermilion wheat, were beyond his cognitive reach. And yet they were so expensive! Charles, who esteemed nothing in this world so highly as a high price tag, was overcome. He reached for his checkbook.

"What do you think?" asked Vanessa Abrams, camera in hand.

"I think being an artist is a great misfortune indeed," said Mr. Bass. "And being a patron an even greater one. Where will I put such an ugly painting? It would clash horribly with my purple settee, and even worse with my red leather chesterfield. And yet I _must_ have it."  

"You don't have to buy it," said Vanessa, speaking with the forthright logic of a poor person. Charles could only gape at her want of taste.

"Oh but I must," he said, wringing his hands. "I _must_."

 

 

There in the corner was Penelope, with her head buried in a phone receiver.

"…All members of the smart set were present and accounted for at Miss Waldorf's latest soiree. Stop. The party, held in honor of the artist Wilhelm Ernst, was a rather bohemian affair. Stop. Mr. Daniel Humphrey, an author of no fortune or notoriety, remained at Miss Waldorf's side all night long, and certainly had a hand in this eccentric gathering. Stop. The disgraced patroness and her mysterious suitor have been traipsing about town for weeks now, attending art gallery openings and the premieres of avant-garde plays. Stop. Nathaniel Archibald, when asked his opinion of Miss Waldorf's new romance, remarked: "Well, I say!" with all his trademark profundity. Stop. Add an exclamation point after say…"

 

Bewildered youths stared at paintings of headless women swinging cricket bats at piles of mollusks. They gazed at sketches of bloodied chess pieces doing battle with flocks of condors. Guests whipped out their checkbooks after listening to half-hearted overtures, nonbelievers became missionaries during the appetizer course, and all of the children had very serious discussions about the Importance of Art in these turbulent times. If no one knew what turbulence they were referring to, it was not for want of enthusiasm.

Blair thought it was all going quite well, especially since Mr. Wilhelm Aksel Ernst did not really exist.

Prank parties were the absolute _height_ of fashion these days, and Blair was never one to let a zenith go unclimbed. Vanessa had done a wonderfully execrable job on the paintings, and Dan had written a piece of art criticism that quoted freely from the Comte de Lautréamont.

"Oh what a good joke it is!" said Serena to Blair. They watched as a hired actor convinced Hazel that she absolutely _could not live_ without a painting of a disemboweled owl.

"Yes, I think it is an excellent joke indeed," said Blair to Serena.

 

 

"I think this is all rather dim," said Jonathan Whitney to Eric van der Woodsen. They were standing in a corner, puzzling over their scripts. Dan had done perhaps too good a job; Eric, who'd been declaiming Shakespeare since grammar school, found his lines inscrutable.

"My sister's set likes these sort of things," said Eric. "And I don't mind playing the fool. Sometimes I get to wear fake beards." He pointed at the whiskers currently glued to his chin.

"But it's hard to hold intelligent conversations with these people," said Jonathan. "I try to stick to the script, but all they do is bleat at me. They la and fa like they're singing scales."

The Countess Dorota Kishlovsky trotted over and shooed them back into position.

"These children have no work ethic," she muttered bitterly to herself. Dorota, the managing director of Countess D's Little Cherubs, was a grim reminder to all that dreams often die crossing the Atlantic.

 

 

Dan Humphrey was leaning against a wall, uncomfortably aware of people's stares. He, who had gotten so used to being invisible, was finding his sudden ascent to notoriety perplexing. It was hard to maintain an attitude of blithe contempt when confronted with an interested audience. He had discovered, to his chagrin, that when all eyes were turned on him he had a tendency to smile. What embarrassment!

"I think you're supposed to play the happy host," said his sister Jennifer, who was quite willing to bask in the glow of his newfound fame. "Not stand in the corner like a crackpot with a wall fetish."

"I like it here. The wallpaper matches my eyes."

"Blair will be mad if you don't mingle."

"Blair is always mad. She gets mad when I comb my hair wrong and when I wear a red tie. She hates the way I pronounce the word schedule and slapped me across the face when I asked if she liked the novels of George Sand. There's no use trying to please Blair."

"Trying to please me is always useful, Dan," said Blair, swooping into the conversation. "If only as a lesson in disappointment. Think of it as an ever-unreachable goal, like Sisyphus rolling the boulder up the hill. I'm sure Sisyphus pretended to be very happy with his boulder, and you are going to pretend to be very happy with me. Now let's take a tour of the room."

She grabbed his hand and pulled him away.

 

 

Carter Baizen, who laughed at the punch line the moment he entered the room, purchased a painting of a swan performing fellatio on an overripe banana. He intended to hang it over his bed.

 

 

"Dearest Iz!" said Blair to Kati. "How are you enjoying the exhibit?"

"Well, it's rather obscene, isn't it?" said Kati, gesturing towards a painting of a dying cow.

"It's _art_ , darling," said Blair, affecting a world-weary smile.

"Oh I was prepared for art," said Kati. "I was prepared for poetry plucked from a hat and gum wrappers glued indiscriminately to a canvas. I was even prepared, if forced, to consider the cleverness of a repurposed waste receptacle. But this isn't clever."

"No, dear, not clever at all," chimed Iz. "It looks like someone infected a fleet of canvases with conjunctivitis."

"Very true, dear," said Kati. "An ocular disease seems to be catching. There's no other reason why people would purchase this tripe. It's as though the sick soul of Europe has descended upon us, killing true artistry with a plague of bad taste. It's the emperor's new illness."

"The emperor's new illness indeed, darling," said Iz.

"What interesting opinions you have, Iz!" said Blair to Kati. Blair, who was never able to attend to either of them for more than two words at a time, and was never able to stomach the two of them together for more than one, had stopped listening as soon as the first had opened her mouth.

"Come along, Dan," she said. "We do have _so_ many people to greet!"

"Which one is which?" asked Dan as they walked away from the pair. "I can never seem to keep them straight."

"No one knows, darling," said Blair. "We just shout out a name and hope for the best."

 

 

Eric was trying to sell Jessica Leitenberg a painting of a dead cat being mummified by an anthropomorphized tree. He said, "…The diseased cat, made fallow and futile, has stared into the bowels of the land and found life wanting. But the tree, who has scanned all the crannies of the world in search of a soul that matches his, found one only too late. This searing portrait of love after life blackens all halls, darkens all entranceways…"      

"That sounds very jolly indeed," she said, quite stricken. "How much does it cost, dear?"

 

 

"Hello Natey!" cried Serena. "Are you enjoying the party?"

"You know I haven't got a head for art, S," he said, staring grimly at a collage. "I can't make any sense of it."

"We cannot all be artists, dear," she said. "If we could, I'd be obliged to pose nude for every gentleman who asked. And I do have such a lovely collection of frocks. I'd hate to see them go to waste."

"La," said Nate quite bashfully, his cheeks pink at the thought.

"I do hope you're doing all right, dear," said Serena, placing a hand on his shoulder. "It must be too, _too_ hard to see Blair so happy so soon."

Nate scanned the crowd for Blair. She was talking to Hazel and Penelope, her arm linked with Dan's, and she looked as happy as Blair could look. She was probably, thought Nate, saying something very mean indeed. He was suddenly nostalgic. No one was ever quite so mean as Blair; to Nate, who had never ascended to the top of any field, this was a rather remarkable distinction.

"I do miss her, sometimes," said Nate. "She was always so quick to point out my faults. I know that doesn't _sound_ appealing, but I find myself floundering without her. How will I know if I've sent out the wrong sort of invitations if Blair's not there to tell me? How will I tie the perfect Windsor knot without her helpful little hands? Her cruelty was very instructive. Blair always said my education was lacking, and I think she might have been right."

"Oh, my darling Nate," said Serena, with a sly smile. "I'm sure it will all turn out right in the end."

 

 

Nelly thought the pieces lacked cohesion, but she applauded their use of color. She purchased a painting of Orpheus staring at Eurydice from behind a monocle, and hung it proudly in her bathroom.

 

 

"Just look at Nate!" squealed Blair, dreadfully excited. "He looks absolutely miserable."

He did, in fact, look miserable. His eyes, which lacked the untroubled sparkle of a mind at peace, were cast down. His hair, which was usually brilliantined into place, was draped haphazardly across his forehead. Blair clapped her hands in glee.

"You're a very selfish person, you know," said Dan to Blair, as they paraded around the room.

"You say that like it's an insult," she said, not at all put out.

"To most people it would be."

"It's harder being me than you can imagine, Mr. Humphrey. There are times in a girl's life when a little selfishness is the only thing standing between her and certain defeat. As I have never been one to accept defeat, covering myself in a hard carapace of solipsism is, I'm afraid, my only option."

"And kindness? Compassion? They aren't worth anything?"

"They aren't worth enough," she said. "That's the problem with you do-gooder types. You'll never understand that the scheming, striving masses just don't view compassion as a compelling alternative."

"You're hopeless," he said.

She looked over at Nate, now nibbling sadly at crudités.

"On the contrary," she said. "I am very hopeful indeed."

Dan turned his head away, and if Blair was just a touch less selfish, she might have noticed he looked nearly as miserable as Nate.

 

 

Vanessa noticed. She milled about the party, snapping shots of deluded souls certain that their taste was irreproachable. It was a jolly way to spend an evening, but still; she noticed.

 

 

Eric was reapplying his beard in the bathroom when Dan wandered in.

'Why it's Cleopatra!" exclaimed Dan, a little drunk. "You're rather more hirsute today."

"You're rather more inebriated," said Eric. Dan wobbled, and Eric reached out with a steadying hand.

"You, sir," slurred Dan, shaking his finger at Eric, "are a liar."

"Am I?" asked Eric, laughing a little at the accusation.

"You told me that Blair Waldorf was only sometimes terrible."

"And where's the lie in that?" asked Eric.

"I'm not quite sure," said Dan. "But I was wish I was."

Eric was always a bit awkward when forced to go off script, so he made due with patting Dan on the arm. It was a nice arm, really. He sighed.

 

 

"Do you remember when I dragged you to the Met and you fell asleep on a bench?" asked Blair, as she sidled up to Nate. She handed him a glass of champagne. "You put your head in my lap and started snoring, and I just didn't have the heart to wake you. I stared at a Vermeer for hours."

"I remember your lap," he said. "I'm afraid I don't recall the painting."

"You always looked very sweet asleep. Like a little slumbering lamb. I could never resist you when your eyes were closed."

"But you can resist me when my eyes are open?" he asked.

"I have a hard time resisting you then as well," she said, coy. "Eyes open or eyes closed; mouth empty or filled with nonsense; hair tidy or infuriatingly mussed. All Nates are hard to say no to."

He grabbed her hand and pulled her into an empty hallway.

"Blair…" he started.

"Yes, Nate?" she asked innocently, lashes aflutter.

"I do _miss_ you," he said, with some feeling.

"Do you, dear?" she said.  

"Would you consider, possibly, if it isn't too much to ask," he said, stumbling over his words as ever, "being mine again?"

"Well, dear, it is difficult, isn't it? I am _very_ fond of Mr. Humphrey. It would be heartless to just throw him over."

"Wouldn't it be more heartless to deny ourselves the pleasure of love reuinted? All for some nobody you've known a few weeks. Fa!"

Blair, for reasons that would have appeared clear to anyone more given to self-reflection, felt a sudden need to defend Mr. Humphrey.

"He's not a nobody," she said, brow furrowed. "He's a very promising novelist. He's currently working on what I'm sure will be his masterpiece."

Nate, who viewed the visual arts and novels with an equally disinterested eye, cut off this line of conversation with a kiss. Blair swooned into his arms, which she always made sure to do when kissing Nate. She was a great devotee of the cinema—what she didn't know about tap dancing flappers and wife stealing Lotharios would last the length of an intertitle—and swooning was an inviolable cinematic rule. To refuse to swoon was to refuse the rights of being a heroine. But Blair hadn't scheduled a kiss with Nate for two more weeks at least, and she was rather annoyed that he'd taken the initiative. She pulled away and scowled.

"That was very wrong of you, Nate," she said. "I won't have you making me a dishonest woman."

Then she turned and stomped away, her heels drumming hard against the tile floor.

 

 

"I think it was quite a good party," said Blair after all the guests had gone home. She was seated at her vanity, removing her hairpins one by one. Dan, now distressingly sober, watched as brown locks unfurled like ribbons. He felt a sudden need to touch one of her curls.

"Vanessa was happy," he said. "Her paintings were quite the hit."

"Yes, I'm glad she's such a terrible artist. It made the joke much funnier."

"I'll tell her you said that," he said, sardonic.

"Nate kissed me tonight," she said, taking a brush to her hair. "I think it's almost time for our romance to come to an end."

"Ah."

"You'll be glad," she said. "I'm sure you're tired of me by now."

"Oh yes, absolutely exhausted. I'm planning on retiring to my bed for a month at least. I'll need a very good nap to get over the trauma of dating you."

"Ha."

"I will miss you a bit, Blair," he said.

"Oh don't be serious, dear, I can't bear it when you're serious."

Then he told her the story of Charles Bass staring at Vanessa's painting, thinking very serious thoughts about the importance of price tags. This lasted a good five minutes, and by that time Blair had removed her makeup. Then she touched her lips and said: "It's never quite like the movies, is it?"

Dan said, "What?"

Blair said, "Kissing," and told him he needed to be educated in the importance of the cinematic arts.

He told her that movies were the last resort of people who couldn't read.

Then they had a fight that lasted all through Blair's moisturizing routine and all the way to her bathroom and all the time she was pulling on her pajamas, until Dan apologized and said she could take him to a movie tomorrow as long as it didn't star that Garbo woman, who never seemed to smile.

Then Blair smiled, just to show him that she could.

By the time Dan was getting ready to leave she was prepared to admit that perhaps she overestimated the importance of movies, and that kissing did not have to be accompanied by the swelling sound of a piano score. Still she maintained that a kiss that didn't make a girl swoon was no kiss at all, and she doubted if such a sturdy, passionless kiss was ever worth it.  

Then Dan left.

The truth is that like so many people of their age and education, Dan and Blair were suffering from being sophisticated about love before they were at all clever enough to recognize it.

 

 

Mr. Jeremiah Harris was a jolly, avuncular man, prone to speaking in axioms and eating a meal once every hour. His apartment was full of misplaced invitation cards and leather bound books, and he had a cat named Miss Mittens, who spat at Dan when she first saw him. Dan, who knew too well the supercilious airs of cats, took this condemnation in stride; indeed, his pride was only a little wounded.

"I rather liked your story," said Mr. Harris over luncheon, his mouth full of a cheese sandwich.

Dan, who was too overcome to say much of anything, bowed his head.

"Death is the great leveler," said Mr. Harris, rather portentously. "Remember that, young man."

Dan, who was familiar with the proverb, did not need to work hard to remember it; he did wonder, however, why a great author was flinging that phrase with so little care. "Yes, sir," he said.

"An author is often nothing until he's dead," continued Mr. Harris. "We toil away with our little bits of ink; we cling to scraps of praise and brief write-ups in _The Times_. But death is the deciding factor, my boy. You're not a true artist until you've died."

"Well, every aspiring artist will manage that eventually," said Dan. "I call that luck."

"Posterity looks kindly on those who wait," said Mr. Harris. "I, for example, intend to live until I'm at least 102."

Dan thought this seemed like a tall order indeed. But he had not come to speak of Mr. Harris's life expectancy."But you really liked my story?" asked Dan, who wanted to hear the sentiment repeated.

"Yes, m'boy," said Mr. Harris, plucking a pear from a tray of fruit. "The prose was very clean, very economical."

The fact that Mr. Harris seemed more interested in his pear than in Dan's writing did not, thankfully, lessen the force of the compliment.    

 

 

Later he went to pick up Blair. As he waited for her in her foyer he was quite overcome with happiness; he did a little jig, hopping from one tile to the next like a child playing at hopscotch.

He was still at it when Blair came out of her room, and she let him go on for a moment before calling out: "What are you doing?"

He looked up at her and smiled."I'm quite happy, is all," he said. "You're probably unfamiliar with the sensation."

"My emotional gamut spans many alphabets, sir. There's a linguist at Oxford inventing new languages just so he can describe my smiles."

"I'm in a good mood, tonight, so be careful," he said. "I'm liable to believe anything you say."

"That's an invitation," she replied, laughing.

But as she descended the staircase she couldn't help but think, rather sadly, that she'd never see him dance like that again.

 

 

Miss Kati Farkas and Miss Isabel Coates cordially request your presence:

The Funeral Party

At the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home

8 pm on October 12, 1928

Come dressed in black.

 

 

Charles Bass stood across the street from the funeral home and watched the guests arrive. All the Bright Young People descended upon the place, unspooling out of taxis and hired cars like jolly sardines, their eyes full of crocodile tears and their hands full of tissues. Charles never quite understood these prank parties, with their false cheer and costumes de rigueur.

Serena van der Woodsen tumbled out of a car drenched in black sequins; she was closely followed by Miss Waldorf and Mr. Humphrey, that happy accident. The pair ran up the steps, hands linked, laughing with their heads pinned close. Poor Nathaniel, thought Charles. Charles was not prone to reflection, but some knowledge can be divined by even the most prosaic of men.

 

 

Penelope was always already there, the phone receiver held aloft by a black gloved hand.

"…We may not be celebrating a death tonight, but someone might die of boredom if this party doesn't improve soon. Stop. Kati Farkas and Isabel Coates may be fond of the macabre, but I'm more interested in a different sort of ending. Stop. Namely, the romantic status of one Miss Blair Waldorf. Stop. I've heard rumblings that her relationship with Daniel Humphrey is on the rocks, and this seems the perfect setting to kill that courtship once and for all. Stop…"

 

 

Kati and Iz were waiting at the entrance for their guests, like widows collecting respect from a line of mourners.

"What a festive party, Kati," said Serena to Iz.

"Yes, very jolly," said Blair.

"That is just what we intended," said Iz. "Tonight we celebrate death with the zeal of the living."

"Just so, dear," said Blair.

"I still don't know which is Kati and which is Iz," said Dan, after they'd walked away.

"Theirs is not to reason why, my dear," answered Blair.

 

 

Nelly Yuki had a red sash tied round her waist. Hazel had sworn quite gravely that it was the latest fashion, and Nelly was not one to distrust so saturnine a pronouncement. That no one else was dressed in kind had, thankfully, escaped her notice.

 

 

Tonight they were going to end their affair.

It was planned quite meticulously. Blair was going to pick a fight about the shade of his suit, and Dan was going to complain about her rampant insensitivity. They would yell quite loudly. Then she was going to retreat to a corner to cry and Nate would swoop in; he would offer his shoulder to her with great ceremony and she would take it. Perhaps he would lend her his jacket. Then, after a momentary demurral, she would fall into his arms and he would be hers again. It was a good plan.

But when it came time to execute it, neither could muster much enthusiasm.

"This is a very ugly suit," she said, tugging at his lapels and refusing to meet his eyes.

"I am very offended by your sartorial recriminations." He attempted to look cross.

"You shouldn't be offended by good sense and logic. It's a waste of time."

"Romancing you is a waste of my time," he said. "I don't know why I ever thought it would work."

"Louder," she said, quietly.

"Romancing you is a waste of my time," he said, his voice more sad than loud.

"We're not making a spectacle," she mumbled under her breath. "We need to make a spectacle."

"You," he cried, his voice pitched towards the rafters, "are a waste of my time."

"Well you are a waste of mine!" she yelled in return.

Her eyes were already shimmering with tears and before he turned to leave, he took a moment to drink in the sight of her face: the crumpled brow, the lip threatening to wobble. She was a better actress than he'd realized. She looked truly sad.

And then he walked away.

 

 

Vanessa watched the exchange from the across the room. She thought she'd gotten quite a nice photograph of Blair's face, screwed into a pose of tragedy. She wondered how her own face looked. Much the same, she thought.

 

 

Nate found Blair sitting at the end of a hallway, her legs splayed out before her like a forgotten doll.

"Are you all right?" he asked. He sat down next to her.

"I'm not, actually," she said, her voice thick. "I certainly planned to be fine. When I scheduled this day on my calendar I left no room for emotional upheavals. I didn't expect to be crying real tears. And yet here I am with my soggy handkerchief, sitting next to you and thinking of a different boy. It's all gone too, _too_ wrong. I can hardly bear it."

He took off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders.

"Did you really like him?" he asked. "Truly?"

"D'you know, I really did," she said. "His hair wants cutting and his suits never seem to fit, but he makes me laugh and when I think of kissing him it doesn’t play out in my head like a film reel. It just seems like life. Tactile and messy and rather grand."

"Well," he said. "You know I'm no good with words, Blair."

"I know, Nate." She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "You are a darling, though."

She rested her head against his shoulder and thought, for a moment, about the cruel disappointments of youth. How unkind life was to the bright young people! What a reversal of fortunes to have suffered! To believe herself in love with one young man only to discover her feelings were the opposite! What a blow to her self-esteem. It was too, _too_ much.

But her self-delusions were unshakeable, and she was soon roused from her melancholy with a new sense of self. What a lark, being the lover of an artist! What a gay life stretched out before her, full of bohemian soirees and jaunts to Paris! It would do for her, she thought. Yes.

Then she wondered, for the first time, whether Mr. Humphrey could play the piano.

 

 

Later, Serena found Nate sitting by himself in the corner. His jacket was lying next to him on the floor and he looked, more than anything, perplexed.

"Are you all right, Natey?" she asked.

"I'm not quite sure," he said.

"I'm sure you'll be fine," she said.

And he would be. Some of the Bright Young Boys were destined to failure, their brittle wit vanquished by a strong gust of wind. But Nate! He, who never had any wit to speak of, was certain to be the most successful of all. His unshakeable ineptitude could weather the strongest of storms.

Serena took his hands in hers and pulled him to his feet. Together they danced towards the exit.

 

 

"Dan!" yelled the voice of Miss Waldorf.

He couldn't see her. An autumn mist had rolled in, and it had cloaked the street in a light haze; now every passerby looked like a shadow and sounded like a thunderstorm.

"I'm over here," he called, his voice guarded.

And then, as if by magic, she appeared, stumbling out of the fog like a soggy angel. Her eyes were rimmed red with tears and her cheeks were pink with cold, but she looked quite nice to him.

"Hello," she said, by way of a beginning.

"Hello," he replied.

"Our plan worked," she said, taking a step towards him.

"Did it?" he asked.

"Quite nicely," she said, now very close to him indeed. "But when I was sitting in a corner, crying and waiting for Nate, I realized he wasn't the one I wanted to see."

"No?" he asked.

"No," she replied.

Then he leaned down to kiss her and she arched into him without a thought. It was nice, she realized, to swoon instinctively. So much nicer than the movies.

"I'm still very poor, you know," he said, after they parted.

"Darling, stop trying to dissuade me. My affections are very mercurial. You might succeed."

"I won't stomach being a kept man," he said. "I'll only grow to despise you."

"Yes, dear, just so, dear," she said, reaching up to fix his tie. "But before we begin our life of self-inflicted poverty, can't I buy you a new suit? This one is very ugly."

"I've doomed myself to a life of wealth and privilege, haven't I?" he said, a note of fear rising in his voice.

"I don't know what you mean, darling," she said. "We'll be frightfully poor. We'll eat lots of gruel and think very serious thoughts and wash dishes until our fingers bleed. It'll be a jolly adventure."

"Is that your idea of poverty?"

"Is it very wrong?

"Only a bit."

"By the way, do you play the piano?" she asked. "I do so like to kiss with Debussy in the background."

 

 

Eric van der Woodsen stood beneath an awning and watched them leave. He had his red scarf wrapped around his throat and it fluttered in a breeze turned unexpectedly chill. He looked towards the sky and thought sunlight would soon come, so he ducked into the city streets and pointed his feet towards home.


End file.
